Question for those Who Question Calories/Plan

I'm active- I hike hilly miles and walk- no running due to back, knee and ankle issues- and I have added lifting into the mix.. and have stayed on the 600-800 through the majority of my WL time. I still cap it at 800, but a few days a month I hit 900-1000 when I have an adult beverage or so.. I have also upped my protein to around 90-100g a day recently to aid the muscle building side.

My feeling, I have the fat to burn- I do not need to eat what I work off (the fat is the energy source I'm dipping into) .. as I get leaner, and those last lbs of fat are gone, I will naturally have to start upping my cals but I will keep my carbs on the lower side.. I have never suffered from a lack of energy at those calorie ranges, but that is my body and my results.

This is something that has always confused me. For awhile before I even knew weight loss surgery was possible for me (I was 15 at the time..) I was sick and tired of absolutely no diet working.. I tried starving myself... I got diagnosed with an eating disorder. etc... for awhile. I didn't eat enough. at all. Binge/Purged a few times, etc.. this went on for a few months. And I still gained weight.. I was eating around 500 calories a day, sometimes less.. sometimes nothing. And I was in starvation mode.

I finally quit all of that when I found out surgery was possible for me. As my last chance. My last hope at ever losing this weight.... Lost 30-35 pounds almost immediatley with med changes and eating more frequently small meals... that was the most weight i've ever lost in my life.

Then i had surgery, all that... And on here everyone says 600-800 calories and I'm thinking "At 500.. I was gaining weight because I was in starvation mode.... what am I supposed to do?" And I ask my doctors.. Their plan says 1,000-1,200 a day... but I wasn't losing any weight. at all. So I lowered it to around 800.. and I keep it inbetween 600-800 now.. and I'm losing... slowly.. about 0.9lbs a week. average. 9 months out.. 1 hour of exersize a day, all my fluids and perscriptions..

I have absolutely no idea why my weight loss is so slow.. But I can never seem to get the caloric intake right. at all. But this is the best it's worked so far since surgery.. 600-800 calories.. so.. I'm sticking with that. I'm not going lower. and I'm afraid to go higher. So i'm hoping this lasts and gets me to goal.

 The other night I wrote a post on my blog kinda relevant to this here.  Its just my thought on what I eat.

For me really, I don't mind the 600 calories.  If I venture over 600 is by like 10 calories - and thats in the error range anyway.  I honestly have wondered how when I get to maintenance I will eat 1000 or more.  The big change for me is how I have approached my food.  My food is not for consolation anymore, Food is not my companion anymore, I do not make dates with food anymore.  I eat food and digest it.

I agree with many of the points above regarding exercise and athletes.  I would never question Allison - she looks like she could probably beat me up, LOL.  Plans need to fit the person executing them.  If you are running marathons - clearly you need different limits.

For the majority of us in Weight Loss, 600-800 is reasonable.  We have to give our bodies the minimum they need to build and repair themselves.  We have to get the biological processes running to get us to goal.  I think if we really do the job of changing ourselves, the lifestyle stuff becomes much easier.  If you don't you are constantly focused on food and the lifestyle change is like pulling teeth.

I think we need  to draw some distinctions between men and women. We do not gain or lose weight the same way.  Men naturally maintain lean mass (muscle) more easily than women, lose weight more easily than women, and do not have the same issues with hormones or lack thereof..  20% body fat is considered average for a man whereas it is very fit for a woman.  There are different physiological implications of pushing body fat very low while keeping calories low for men and women.  A lot of this is evolutionary response to feast/famine -- i.e., preserve reproductive capability by slowing metabolism, or shut off reproductive capability if there's insufficient energy (fat or food intake) to support both mom and fetus. 

I'm at 107% EWL. I stayed in the 600-800 calorie range for much of my weightloss.  It worked great, and it was not particularly hard even given the level of physical training I did during the first 11 months postop.  Once I passed 100% EWL, however, that changed.  I kept my calories too low for too long, and I stopped mensturating, crashed my metabolism, and became anemic.  Albeit, i have an underlying autoimmune disorder, but I have had that same disorder for 20 years without every suffering the same symptoms.  Per my own research, not to mention my surgeon, endocrinologist, gynecologist, and rhumetologist, it is not healthy for women to stay in prolonged,  significiant daily calorie deficit (more than 500) once they are within the 'normal' BMI range and have body fat of 24% or lower. 

I would still like to drop my body fat by another 1-2% points.  I'm doing that at 1500-2000 calories per day while I train rather than half that number of calories. 

Edited to add:  And you get to pee standing up... Just sayin'

 Amen, Krazydoglady.

I'm not really smart about a lot of this stuff but I do remember being on Weigh****chers several times.
One of the changes I have seen with Weigh****chers over the past ten years is the change in the way they count the points over the course of a week.
Now they allow "banking" points to use extra at the end of the week.

There was a woman who lost a lot of weight and had a website calle DWLZ.com
dotties weight loss zone.

She actually advocated the "banking" system. She said that was how she got past the stalls and plateaus'.  This was before WW changed the point system and added the "banking" stuff.

Food for thought.

donna

I couldn't get anyone at my doctors office to quantify a caloric range, it was all about the level of protein and volume of intake - and the rest be damned, apparently.  I'm a numbers gal and needed that target....so, I listened to the most successful people on this board and figured they had done something right (well, many things, actually) and set my personal target at 600-800 calories per day.  In the beginning (honeymoon period) I was at or below the lower end of the range and as my tummy healed and restriction was a little looser, I was closer to the higher end, but by golly, 800 was the cap.  It got me to goal and WOW, I'm still here on OH too.  Thanks for stirring the pot again Frisco, I can always count on you!!!

Deb

 I figure I'm going to do whatever it is that my surgeon & dietician say I should do, and only deviate from that if it isn't working...the dietician is a PhD & uni instructor, not a randomly qualified nutritionist, so she's got the expertise.

luckily I haven't screwed up my metabolism with yoyo dieting over the years - hopefully that will be helpful!

I was crawling along just eating and focusing on protein and fluids and not really watching my cals. I averaged about 1200 a day but sometimes had a 1300 cal day (even recently). I was not losing. I dropped to 600-800, heavy protein, low carb and I'm managing. I'll report back in a week or so on new weight loss.

I think it's like my dr said, patients who come back for follow-up stay on plan. It's the same with OH. Patients on plan want to read and participate. People who are moving on, stop reading, participating, I think. Maybe they have lost their weight, maybe they start eating again. If I didn't read here and one other board, I'd eat and pretend I was going to lose it all eventually.

I stuck to under 800 calories for two reasons. 1. I was afraid if I didn't Dr. C would yell at me and 2. It wasn't hard to do. I think that everyone tends to trust what their doctor/nut is telling them to do. I totally believe what I was told by Dr. C and his nutritionist because I had no reason to question him. He seemed super intelligent and he had lots of experience. If I didn't get direction from him I probably would have eaten more calories and followed what I have always done prior to meeting Dr. C. That is the belief that cutting too many calories will cause your body to go into shut down mode (survival) and you won't lose weight. I proved that theory wrong. I think that it is a number of things that makes a person successful: A good surgeon who knows what he/she is doing, a good eating plan and strong motivation. I believe that self pay patients are more successful than those without any skin in the game. That is just my belief so I don't want to make anyone upset. But when I am paying $17000 I want to make sure I get my money's worth.